Ready to Learn Programming S295A200002
A. SIGNIFICANCE What do you want to be when you grow up? Most people have either asked or answered this familiar question. Whether the reply is “doctor,” “ballet dancer,” “astronaut,” or a combination of all three, children’s hopes and plans for their future jobs are a frequent topic of conversation, focus for creative play and fodder for daydreams. However, actual preparation for such careers, especially for young learners, is unfortunately infrequent. As Jennifer Curry, Ph.D., a professor at Louisiana State University and a former elementary school counselor writes, The misconception that high school is the time to begin career and college preparation is nothing new but vastly incorrect. Like any area of development, career development is sequential and builds over time. We don’t expect students to arrive to high school and take algebra without prior math courses. Can you imagine how they would react? Yet, there are some schools and districts where exactly that happens with career and college development; some students don’t receive a cohesive career curriculum until they are in their final high school years and are still expected to know how to make thoughtful career and college choices (Curry, 2017). This lack of career preparation is especially problematic given that making choices around educational and career pathways has never been more challenging. With technology, urbanization, resource scarcity and even weather and health-related crises driving change, the United States’ workforce is evolving at a dizzying pace. Indeed, a multitude of today’s common positions, such as app developer, data security specialist or social media manager, were nonexistent when the current workforce was in kindergarten.
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